she's coming. She may be a real help in the church. Now don't color
up. Ministers have to take help. It's part of their discipline."

Sometimes Mrs. Solomon Black said a wise and consoling thing. Elliot,
moving his effects to the old parsonage, considered that she had done
so then. "She is right. I have no business to be proud in the
profession calling for the lowly-hearted of the whole world," he told
himself.

After he had his books arranged he sat down in an armchair beside a
front window, and felt rather happy and at home. He reproached
himself for his content when he read the morning paper, and
considered the horrors going on in Europe. Why should he, an
able-bodied man, sit securely in a room and gaze out at a peaceful
village street? he asked himself as he had scores of times before.
Then the imperial individual, which obtrudes even when conscience
cries out against it, occupied his mind. Pretty Fanny Dodge in her
blue linen was passing. She never once glanced at the parsonage.
Forgetting his own scruples and resolves, he thought unreasonably
that she might at least glance up, if she had the day before at all
in her mind. Suddenly the unwelcome reflection that he might not be
as desirable as he had thought himself came over him.

He got up, put on his hat, and walked rapidly in the direction of the
old Bolton house. Satisfying his curiosity might serve as a
palliative to his sudden depression with regard to his love affair.
It is very much more comfortable to consider oneself a cad, and
acknowledge to oneself love for a girl, and be sure of her
unfortunate love for you, than to consider oneself the dupe of the
girl. Fanny had a keen sense of humor. Suppose she had been making